Cressler comes back to Newport as commencement speaker

At Newport High School, Clyde Cressler was known as someone who could make you laugh.

“I was quite an interesting person, and I did a lot of goofing off and having fun,” he said.

He was student body president, played tuba in the band and wrestled.

Today, that laugh and sense of humor still are contagious.

Cressler owns the Medicine Shoppe in Newport, among other pharmacies. He credits his roots as shaping the man he is today. On May 31, the 1961 graduate will get to share his insight with the class of 2012 as the commencement speaker.

“I’m honored they asked me to do it,” he said.

Cressler resides in Mechanicsburg, but considers Newport his home.

“I remember being pretty content and happy with my life. People would say nice things about you even if they weren’t true,” he chuckled. “I developed a lot of friendships in Newport.”

After graduating from Shippensburg University for elementary education and the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Pharmacy, he and his wife Carol raised two children in Meadville.

Cressler returned to Newport when his children went to college, but health issues forced him to move again.

“After I had bypass surgeries, I wanted to be near the hospital,” he said. “I also have Parkinson’s disease. It debilitates you if you don’t move your muscles.”

As a way to alleviate the severity of the disease, he and his wife take dance lessons.

“Once you open the door to the dance floor, all the pain and stiffness goes away,” he said.

He always has been known as a dancer, having attended four high school proms.

Cressler plans on sharing personal stories with the students, and not all of them will be about triumph.

“I’ll probably talk about learning from mistakes more than learning from winning (in my speech). You learn a lot more when you lose.”

Cressler learned many lessons from wrestling.

“My junior year I was undefeated, and the team was undefeated.”

On the day the team faced Mechanicsburg, Cressler was over his weight limit. He worked at a grocery store and a woman there offered him diet pills that she was taking. He took one, not thinking twice about it.

“Here I am in the match, and Newport has a chance to go undefeated. All of a sudden, I crashed and burned, and I got pinned.”

So much for his and the team’s perfect records.

“Don’t take diet pills from little old ladies is the moral of that story,” he laughed.

Cressler also will talk about success.

“(My speech) is basically about an average guy in Newport, Pa., who because of his experiences becomes what some people call a success.”

He said many people see success as having nice cars and being financially wealthy. That’s not the way he defines it.

“I own 17 drugstores. We have 160 employees, and we fill a million prescriptions a year,” said Cressler. “But that’s not success.”

He earned distinguished alumni awards from both Shippensburg and Pittsburgh, was a two-time district wrestling champion and was inducted into the District III Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2002.

But he said the accomplishments aren’t necessarily what makes him a success.

“Success is being happy with who you are and contributing something to the people you care about.”

He enjoys helping others and attributes much of his success to his faith and his family.

“If you knew my wife, you’d understand there is nothing I can say that really does her justice. Her strength of values has led me in the right direction to be able to have the necessary material things to help people. Without her, I would be nothing.”

Cressler remains involved with the Newport High School wrestling program. He sponsors the Newport Holiday Tournament each year and has provided funding for numerous events and equipment.

“I do it because I feel I was given a lot of advantages in life. People mentored me along the way and I’m trying to give back all that I received. And I know that I can’t give back near what I received, but I’ve got to try.”

After this year’s commencement, Cressler will receive the Bob Craig Youth Service Award.

“I don’t think anything I do is special,” he said. “There’s always a place where you can influence someone or help someone.”

He also is a mentor to Adam Smith, a 2001 Newport graduate and wrestler. Cressler helped send him through camps during high school, college at Penn State and training for the Olympic trials.

“I followed his wrestling career through high school and college,” Cressler said. “I feel that we supported each other in our moral values and our love of wrestling ... I gained strength from his attitude.”

Cressler’s excited to see what is in store for this year’s graduates.

“I’m really looking forward to the commencement and to see the potential and possibilities [of the students]. I’m sure they’re going to do a great job.

Cressler wants the graduates to take away the idea of learning from the past.

“I want to share that you don’t have to be the perfect teenage kid. You can make mistakes, and you are still given that opportunity every day when you wake up to be a better person than you were the day before.”